


Ejection, Rejection

by newtypeshadow



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Assumed Relationship, Demisexual Nate Lambert, F/M, First Kiss, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Canon, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 14:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15584022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newtypeshadow/pseuds/newtypeshadow
Summary: Jake sighs with relief when he walks into medbay with dinner for two and sees a bandage over Nate’s right shoulder. Good. Maybe he hasn’t seen their soulmate mark yet. Nate will be royally pissed when he does, if his reaction to Jake’s crush on him ten years ago is any indication.





	Ejection, Rejection

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [AU August](https://lnc2.tumblr.com/post/174925809860/au-yeah-august) day 1: Soulmates.

Jake sighs with relief when he walks into medbay with dinner for two and sees a bandage over Nate’s right shoulder. Good. Maybe he hasn’t seen their soulmate mark yet. Nate will be royally pissed when he does, if his reaction to Jake’s crush on him ten years ago is any indication. Jake’s already covered his soulmark, the tattooed symbol for their jaeger, Gypsy Avenger, that appeared on his left shoulder sometime during the battle that destroyed her, injured Nate, and saved the world.

Nate’s reclined in a hospital bed in one of the private rooms, his right leg bandaged, splinted, and suspended by a sling that dangles from the ceiling. The white, sterile walls, functional chairs, and rolling table make the space seem cold and cramped. Nate looks tired and shapeless beneath his thin blue hospital gown, his tanned skin wan and bloodless under the fluorescent lights. The IV in his arm and regular beep of his heart monitor on the machines behind the bed are more worrying to Jake than Nate’s appearance, however; maybe he’s not out of the woods after all.

Jake shoves down the worry, and the equally unhelpful thought that he’s got it bad if Nate still looks handsome to him all bandaged up and…a little out of it, actually, since he hasn’t noticed Jake yet. They probably have him on the good drugs, hero that he is. “Hey, Nate,” Jake says, forcing casual cheer into his voice and expression, “thought you might want to eat some real food instead of the rubbish medbay’s got.”

Nate’s blue eyes drift up and focus on Jake, and an uncharacteristic grin warms his voice when he says, “That’s twice today you’ve saved me. ’Hero’s’ a good look for you.”

Jake snorts. “Yeah, well, _everything’s_ a good look for me, I just look _good_. It’s the bone structure.” Still, he’s thankful his dark skin probably hides his flush at Nate’s praise as he comes around the bed and sets the overburdened food tray on the table.

“Really?” Nate’s grin sharpens. “How do you explain that coat then?”

“Hey!” Jake rolls the table over the bed for Nate, then pulls his own plate into his lap and grabs a set of utensils. “I look damned good in this coat. The PPDC has severely impaired your sense of style, mate.”

“You look better in uniform,” Nate says, cutting into his chicken, like it cost nothing to say that, or maybe like he doesn’t realize he spoke.

Jake quashes the frisson of hope that sparks its way down his spine. “You must’ve hit your head pretty hard,” he says, aiming for playful and worried it comes out noticeably bitter. “That’s two compliments since I walked in. You keep it up, I might start to think you like me.”

Nate actually rolls his eyes.

Definitely on the good drugs then. Jake wonders whether Nate will hold anything said in this conversation against him later. Probably, yeah; Nate seems like his usual filters are down, not like he’s loopy, so he’s likely to remember everything.

To stave off that potential future headache, Jake updates Nate on the recruits—new rangers, they earned those stripes today; asks how long his injuries will keep him out of commission; lets him know about the Ranger debriefing he missed while in medbay; and finally, because he can’t help needling Nate at the best of times even knowing it’ll blow up in his face, says, “Jules come in and kiss you better yet?”

Nate hesitates, then says slowly, “She came in, yeah. ‘Bout an hour ago, when they were bandaging me up. She seemed like she wanted to, but then she…well, she left.” He frowns, then shakes his head as if it’ll shake off his confusion. “Why?” His voice takes on the usual combative edge it gets when Jake talks about Jules. “You’re not seriously still thinking about you and her, are you?” He starts viciously slicing through his chicken, knife skidding loudly against his plate. The set of his jaw, glint in his eyes, and hard press of his mouth make him look possessive, jealous, sexy, and Jake’s hit with a wave of _want_ : wanting Nate to look like that when people are interested in Jake, wanting to kiss that look into something quieter, something pliant, awed and satisfied—wanting with everything in him and knowing it’ll never happen, not for him, not even with the mark he’s taped over on his shoulder matching the mark bandaged on Nate’s.

“Oh, yeah, that’s what it is,” Jake says, aiming for sarcasm and mostly hitting it, “jealousy.” It really is though. Jake tries not to let the nerves in his plummeting stomach show on his face. She’d probably seen the mark. Jules already knows, even though Nate doesn’t. He wonders how many people in medbay have seen it. How fast word will spread around the Shatterdome. How long it will be before people start looking at him with pity. Jake realizes he’s paused too long when Nate’s eyes rise from his savaged meat to focus on his face. Jake clears his throat. “You know she kissed me too though—maybe _you_ should be jealous.“

Nate’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t rise to the bait, doesn’t engage. His silence feels accusatory. “Something’s wrong,” he finally says. “What’s going on?”

“What could be wrong, Nate?” Jake deflects, “I just saved the world. Big damn hero and everything.”

Nate gives him a supremely unimpressed look. “We may not Drift like we used to yet, but I can still read you like a book, Pentecost. What aren’t you telling me?”

Jake looks away first. He cuts the rest of his chicken into bite-sized pieces to have something to do, some excuse not to meet Nate’s eyes.

Behind them, the heart monitor picks up speed. Nate’s voice rolls over Jake like a thundercloud. “Really, Jake?” he says. “You’re really doing this again, even after—” His face twists with familiar, painful disgust. “I should’ve known. Our friendship wasn’t enough for you then, why would it be now?”

He knows. He knows how Jake feels, how he _still_ feels, he _knows_. Jake feels like he’s free-falling through the atmosphere all over again, heart lodged in his throat and body breaking into a cold sweat. Of course Nate figured him out. Jake loves Nate’s cleverness, he just wishes it hadn’t kicked in so soon. He thought he’d have more time. Jake dumps his plate on the table and leans back, crosses his arms and strokes his thumb over the mark on his left shoulder, hidden by a bandage and two layers of shirts. “I’m sorry,” he says, and means it. He makes himself meet Nate’s cold blue eyes. “I know it’s not what you want.”

“Oh,” Nate snorts, “not what _I_ want?” He slumps into the pillows and looks away like he can’t stand being close to Jake in any capacity, then leans right back in, glaring hard, back rigid as his beloved PPDC regulations. Jake shoves away the memory of Nate, ten years younger, doing the exact same thing. “Don’t put that on me,” Nate snarls, “don’t you _dare_. It’s not what _you_ want. If you cared what _I_ wanted, what any of us wanted, you never would’ve left in the first place. But that’s what you do, isn’t it, you show up because you have to, not because you give a shit; you don’t even _try_ and you still do better than those of us who’ve worked hard to get where we are because we believe in what we do; and then, when you’ve made yourself indispensable, and you’ve got a family and a place and everyone’s happy, you decide it’s not enough anymore, and you run. You weren’t even gonna tell me, were you?”

Jake flinches.

“That’s what I thought. You were just gonna vanish again, like leaving wouldn’t fuck over the rest of us, because the only person that’s ever mattered to you, your whole life, is you. God, you haven’t changed at all.” Nate slumps back against his pillows and looks away again, like he’s said his piece and now he’s done with Jake—again.

And _that’s_ his soulmate, because of course it is. “I’m not the only one who hasn’t changed,” Jake says, trying to shove down his betrayal, his hurt that history is repeating itself, that Nate is putting everything on him when it was always Nate who mattered most. ”Least now I know what you really think.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Nate says, “it never has. That’s the problem.” Nate still isn’t looking at him.

Perversely, masochistically, Jake wants him to. “I can’t believe you. You’ve been in my head and you still… I knew this would happen.” Jake’s pissed at himself as much as Nate, because he’d been stupid enough to think maybe it wouldn’t happen again, and for the same fucking reason underneath: Nate didn’t want him. “We’ve Drifted, Nate. We’ve Drifted, so you know this is about you, this has _always_ been about you. I stayed when you wanted me to stay, and I left when you wanted me to go, and nothing about me or that equation has changed. All I have _ever_ done in this program is what you wanted me to do.”

Nate’s head snaps back to Jake’s before he’s done talking. “That’s bullshit. Don’t use me as an excuse. You knew when you got in that jaeger alone they’d kick you out, you did it because you _wanted_ to leave.”

“Because _you_ wanted me gone! You couldn’t stand that I wanted to be more than brothers, you _hated_ me for it, thought I was ruining your dream of being a pilot. All you wanted was for me to go away. That’s how you felt then, and I was stupid to think a fucking tattoo would change things now.” Jake shoves to his feet, ignoring the way the uncomfortable hospital chair skids and topples behind him. He needs to get out of here. Out of this room, out of this Shatterdome. Maybe he’ll transfer, learn to Drift with someone else—unlike Nate, he’s always been good at Drifting with anyone, that’s one of the reasons he did so well as a cadet. He can live up being a hero like his sister, like his father. Or maybe he’ll return to drifting on his own, off the grid, and try to be happy without even the hope of a soulmate this time around. Either way, he’ll never see Nate again, not in person—there’s no Mako to drag Jake back anymore. He’s got no one left.

“What are you talking about?” Nate’s shouting, heart monitor jackhammering behind them. “Jake, stop!”

Jake doesn’t stop. His eyes burn as he jerks the door open.

“Do you even even have a plan? Think about what you’re doing!”

“I know what I’m doing,” Jake snarls, pausing against his better judgment to look one last time at Nate Lambert, his soulmate that doesn’t want him and never will. Nate is red-faced and spitting mad, the kind of wild and hurt (and beautiful) he only ever looks because of Jake, and Jake suddenly understands he isn’t good for Nate, and leaving really is the best decision for both of them. Just like that, the anger leaves him, and all he feels is resigned to his fate. “I’m getting out of your way,” he tells Nate, the same thing Nate said when he switched out for Amara less than six hours ago to let Jake save the world, let him be a hero with someone else. Jake thinks maybe this is the same. On those parting words, Jake ejects himself from Nate’s life—

—and bumps into Jules, who’s standing in the doorway gaping at them both, visibly horrified. “Jake—”

“Take care of him,” he tells her, “he’s better off with you.”

Jake shrugs off her hand, her insistence that he come back and talk about this, and walks quietly out of medbay. Nate said he wouldn’t be let out for another two days, said the doctor ordered bedrest so his leg and side won’t open back up, so Jake has a little time to pack and say goodbye, visit the memorial and take back his photo now that he knows he isn’t staying.

He stops there on his way to his room. The photo is still there, one of his last happy family memories on display for anyone to see, worn down from being folded against Jake’s numb heart more than half his life. He tucks it back into his coat. “I miss you,” he tells Mako, hand pressed to her image the way her hand pressed against the helicopter window when he failed to save her, the best of his father’s children, “but Dad was right. I don’t belong here.”

*

Jake wakes up feeling like steamrollered shit, but knows what he wants to do. He’ll transfer to a different Shatterdome, teach recruits, or even scout the abandoned coastal cities for people like Amara, people born to be pilots but lacking the money or connections to test into the program. If he plays his cards right—and he will—he’ll be able to do it without Drifting ever again. Wherever he goes, he doesn’t want people to know that his soulmate rejected him.

He puts in the transfer request before breakfast. By lunchtime, the whole Shatterdome seems to know he’s leaving, and they’ve received word from five Shatterdomes already trying to entice Jake to pick them.

Amara barrels into his room as he’s zipping up his lone duffel bag that afternoon. Her opening of “You’re leaving?” is incredulous.

“Don’t worry, Smallie, I’ll keep in touch.” He’s surprised by his own wry grin. “We’re family now. Anyway, we saved the world together—the press will never let you be rid of me.” He tries not to think about her outgrowing him, the inevitable pulling away.

Less than a minute later, Jake’s room is stormed by the rest of the new rangers. It’s a better farewell than he’d hoped for, and when his door closes behind them they’re all smiling and reassured and none the wiser about his soulmark or that Nate wants him to leave.

*

The transfer goes through in less than twelve hours. It’s official: every Shatterdome in the world wants Jake Pentecost—the second Pentecost to save the world—to teach their cadets. The only holdup is his current commanding officers not wanting to let him go.

Jake won’t make an official decision on his transfer location for another two weeks; he needs some R&R after all this, and has been promised a ride to his childhood hometown today, and another ride to whatever Shatterdome he chooses in two weeks. He’s leaning towards the newly-recommissioned Tokyo Shatterdome; Japan makes him feel closer to Mako, and dusting off his Japanese will be nice. If he also wants to keep an eye on Mt. Fuji, that’s his own business.

The transport carrier is waiting for him on the tarmac. Jake takes a last look at the Moyulan Shatterdome and steps inside.

And sees Nate.

Nate, who’s already seated, two regulation duffel bags at his feet, splinted leg stretched across the aisle along with a set of crutches, and an uncharacteristically nervous expression on his face.

Jake feels himself shut down—face, mind, and body. He is suddenly exhausted. “What are you doing here, Nate?”

“Going with you.” Nate’s t-shirt sleeve is rolled up, baring his right shoulder to the whole Shatterdome. Gypsy Avenger’s symbol is dark and permanent and exposed on his ruddy skin. Jake wonders how many people have already seen it.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says, parking himself across the aisle and setting his duffel on the seat beside him. “This isn’t want you want, and it’s gonna fuck up your plans to make general before you’re forty. You and me, we’re square. That mark?” He shakes his head. “You don’t owe me anything.”

Nate huffs a mirthless laugh. “You do tend to fuck up my plans.”

Jake sucks in a sharp breath and squeezes his eyes shut, as if not seeing Nate will somehow make this easier.

“That’s good though,” Nate continues. “I need that. A partner who comes at things sideways, knows when to break the rules. Someone who can walk in an underdog and come out on top, every time.”

“Jules can do that,” Jake says, wishing it weren’t true.

“Jules isn’t my soulmate, asshole,” snaps Nate. He makes an abortive move to stand and Jake is pushing him back down with one hand and grabbing the crutches for him with the other even before Nate winces in pain and crashes back into the seat.

“You’re an idiot,” Jake tells him, holding out his crutches and offering a hand to help Nate stand.

“I’m not leaving, I want to close the door.” Nate motions to the open bay door and the people milling around outside pretending not to gawk at the chopper that’s taking Jake Pentecost, hero, away from their Shatterdome. “We need to talk. Alone.”

“Pretty sure we did that yesterday,” Jake says, but puts down Nate’s crutches and closes the door anyway. It slides shut with a _snick_ , and Jake is left in a small passenger cabin, alone, with Nate—alone, because when he looks for the pilot to point out they’ve still got an audience, he realizes the pilot isn’t there, probably wasn’t there to begin with. He sits down with a sigh, crossing his arms but sprawling his legs, trying to look like he isn’t bracing himself for another browbeating.

“I didn’t know about the marks until after you left,“ Nate says.

Jake sighs, resigned. Of course. Nate’s here for the marks on their arms, not for him. Jake can’t even blame him.

Nate’s mouth presses into a frustrated line. He seems to be gathering himself, and Jake lets him, happy enough to delay the inevitable. “We’ve Drifted, since you left before,” Nate finally says. “But I think I need to explain what happened when I saw that you…wanted me.”

Jake shakes his head. “I’m not an idiot—I know what disgust feels like. I was in your head.”

“And I was in yours,” Nate says, and he sounds desperate, insistent, afraid.

His tone cuts through Jake’s rebuttal and into his heart; he keeps his mouth shut. He doesn’t want to hear this, doesn’t want to feel what he felt from Nate in that Drift ever again, but he can’t be the reason Nate sounds like that, he can’t.

“I’d never…you knew me better than anyone else,” Nate says quietly. “I can’t Drift with most people, but I felt as at home in your head as I did in mine, right up until I saw those thoughts and that memory. I’d trusted you with everything I was, but the only part of me you cared about was my body. It was like, because you found me physically attractive, I wasn’t a person to you anymore.”

That’s not how it was _at all_. “Nate—”

“I know that’s not how it was for you,” Nate cuts in, hands up to quell Jake’s outburst, “I know now how most people experience attraction, and sexual attraction, but I didn’t know then, and I’d never wanted someone sexually in my life, so that’s what I thought when I felt that in your head, and that’s why I avoided you those last few weeks. I loved you more than anyone in the world, and I thought you’d betrayed me. I couldn’t understand why the way I looked was worth more to you than who I was, and what we were, and what we could’ve been.”

Jake scrubs a hand over his face, holds it over his mouth so he doesn’t scream, doesn’t say something that breaks Nate out of his monologue and into his senses. This is fucked up. Nate saw one side of his crush and thought he’d seen everything, and it broke them apart. Jake’s attraction made Nate think who he was didn’t matter, that their friendship didn’t matter, and the pain of that throbs in Jake’s chest.

Nate’s rejection will hurt even worse now, Jake can feel it like a knife parked right between his ribs.

“I’m not attracted to people like you are.” Nate says it the same way Jake used to confess he’d broken something expensive, like he’s afraid of Jake’s reaction. “I’d never looked at someone’s body and wanted it, ever. It disgusts me that people I don’t want get off thinking about my body—I don’t think that’s ever gonna change—and it scared me that you’d done that, and I didn’t handle it well. I’m sorry for that.”

Jake nods but keeps his mouth shut, digs his fingers into his side so he doesn’t reach out. Nate is ace and probably had no idea, and Jake _aches_ for him, for who he was: just a scared fucking kid who thought he’d lost the one person he could trust. Jake knows what that’s like. He hates that because of him, Nate knows what that’s like too.

“So you’re right,” Nate admits, “I did want you to leave. But I wouldn’t have if I’d understood you the way I should have, the way I thought I did. I fucked up.”

Nate is leaning into the aisle, one hand worrying his crutches and the other dangling limp off of his bent knee. Jake doesn’t realize he’s mirrored the position until Nate’s hand reaches out and hesitantly comes to rest on Jake’s knee, Nate’s movements slow and careful like Jake is skittish, like Jake would ever want to shake him off.

Jake unclamps his hand from his mouth; it’s clear Nate’s ready for him to say something, and for Nate, he’ll man up and do it, no matter how uncomfortable it makes him. “We both fucked up,” he admits. “But you matter to me, you know that, yeah? More than anyone else now, and not because we’re marked. I wish I’d never made you feel like you didn’t.” He forces a grin. “At least you were smart enough not to climb into a jaeger to prove you did.”

Nate’s shoulders shake with a huff of laughter. “And violate regulations? Not a chance.”

Jake feels himself really smile, small and bruised but genuine. For the first time since the marks appeared, he thinks maybe they’ll end up okay. Not together—Jake’s not that lucky—but they’ll part on good terms this time, and maybe still get to be friends. It’s the best future he can hope for.

Nate’s fingers tighten on Jake’s knee, palm warm even through his jeans, and his gaze snares Jake’s with its sudden intensity. “Don’t leave. Especially not because of me. You belong here. We’re your family. This is your home.”

Jake closes a hand over Nate’s. “It was your home first,” he says as gently as he can, “these are your people.” Nate looks like he wants to argue, but those things are incidental to the real issue: “My feelings haven’t changed, Nate—I don’t think they ever will. I’m always going to care about you, and I’m always going to want you, and there’s no shame in not wanting thoughts like that in your head. You might think me doing that is okay, but I don’t. It’s not gonna end well. It’s better for us if you stay, and I go.” Jake pats Nate’s hand and slides his fingers down to remove it.

Except Nate doesn’t let go, he doubles down, holds Jake’s knee tighter and grasps Jake’s arm with his other hand. “No,” he says, “if you leave I’m going with you.” He’s got the resolved, determined expression on his face that he gets accepting a mission. It’s the same beautiful intensity he exudes inside a jaeger. Jake sees that face and knows Nate won’t bend on this, not even to save himself.

Jake tries to will down his frustration. “Because of the marks,” he says bitterly.

“If I say yes will you stop fighting me on this?”

“Of course not! Nate, you don’t even like me like—”

“Yes I do!” Nate barrels on while Jake gapes at him like a landed fish. “We’re not kids anymore. I want you to want me, I want you to stay with me. You’re _it_ for me, Jake. The marks just prove what I already knew.”

“But Jules—”

“—Is great, and smart, and after a few years I even started to think she was sexy. But the second you stepped off that transport carrier, it was like someone flipped a switch, and I _knew_ , I _knew_ : there was no one else for me, you were _it_. I don’t just want what we had, I want to do things with you I would _resign_ before doing with anyone else. But you made sure I knew you were counting down the days til you could leave, and if Jules was around, where I was didn’t matter.”

“You were pissed I was back, Nate, even the cadets knew.”

“Of course I was—I realized you never would’ve come back, not even for me, because to you I still wasn’t someone worth staying for.”

Jake realizes he’s gripping Nate’s hand so hard his own is cramping, and that Nate is _letting_ him, and feels his heart jackhammering in his ears to the wingbeats of the million butterflies seeping out his spine and into his gut. Nate can’t mean those things. Nate’s disgusted by the idea of being with Jake, that wouldn’t just change…would it? What’s happening now is impossible, right?

“Will you please say something?” Nate snaps when the silences stretches too long, but Jake’s mind remains carefully, fearfully blank. His world has tilted on its axis, he’s seeing constellations he didn’t know existed, possibilities he excised from himself the moment he felt Nate’s disgust ten years ago.

But then Nate starts shrinking into himself, pulling away, and Jake blurts out the only thing that still makes sense in his head: “You’re my Becket.” It explodes out of him, comes out too loud and too emphatic, and Nate startles and cocks his head like maybe Jake’s the one tilted on his axis.

Jake makes himself release his death grip on Nate’s hand, slides his fingers down to hold Nate’s wrist, firm and careful as if he’s cradling a bird, and swallows hard.

He can do this.

For ten years he’s avoided feelings—feeling them, acknowledging them, talking about them—but if Nate can say all that then Jake will damned well say something before he fucks things up between them all by himself. He’d never forgive himself for that. He strokes along the tendon in the soft flesh of Nate’s wrist—hopes it won’t be the last time he gets to do that—and forces himself to talk.

“I stayed with my sister and Raleigh Becket the first few months after my dad…well.” He takes a deep breath and shoves that pain away, turns his focus instead to where Nate’s thumb has begun gently stroking his knee. He rests his gaze there; he doesn’t know if he can say this next bit if he’s looking at Nate’s face. “Anyone with eyes could see Mako only ever looked at Becket. Even after he died, she didn’t look at anyone else. Why bother with people who’ll never be as good, you know? It would be a step down, and I knew it the first time I saw them together. Becket was the only one for Mako, always would be.” Jake’s lips twist into a wry grin. “He told me once he didn’t need a soulmark to know Mako was the one for him, and I knew exactly what he meant, because I didn’t need one either. I’ve flirted with people, _slept_ with people, but you ruined me for anyone else and you didn’t even touch me. Everyone who’s not you feels like a step down—always will. You’re my Becket.”

Nate’s sharp inhale makes Jake glance up instinctively, and then he can’t look away, because the softest expression Jake’s ever seen is stealing over Nate’s face. It’s new to him, a quiet joy and smile to match, and it’s beautiful. It’s still contained—Nate is always contained—but Jake can see happiness in the crinkle of his eyes, in the resilient uptick of his lips that Nate keeps trying to smooth out. Jake wants to capture that expression and tuck it close to him as the picture of his family; wants to pull it out to soothe himself when he’s down, wants to see it every morning when he wakes, coax it into being the rest of his life.

Nate huffs and ducks his head, dirty blond fringing across his forehead as he tries to hide the smile Jake knows is spreading across his face. He clears his throat, and when he looks up, there’s challenge in his eyes. He hooks his fingers under Jake’s knee, grabs the lapel of Jake’s coat with his other hand, and jerks Jake closer before pursing his lips and huffing in frustration. “I could use some help kissing you right now,” he says, and even his irritation is sexy. “This is as close as my leg will let me get.”

Jake’s laughter bubbles out of him, and he shakes his head in mock annoyance as he steps into the aisle to kiss Nate, his soulmate who actually wants him, for the first time. He leans in and tilts Nate’s face to meet his, but ends up pressing their foreheads together at the last minute so he can will his embarrassingly huge smile into submission.

Nate snorts at him, unimpressed as only he can be, and says, “You missed.”

“Shut up,” Jake says, unconsciously stroking Nate’s stubble, and trying and failing to sound stern. “Don’t make me laugh, mate—this is our first kiss, this is serious! I can’t have you go changing your mind if it’s not up to standard, gotta make it good!”

“You’re an idiot,” Nate informs him, and drags him into the last first kiss either of them will ever have, and ever want.

It’s as familiar and electric as Drifting together, and even squeezing back into separate people when the pilot hops in to fly them out for two weeks of R&R doesn’t dampen the satisfaction curling between Jake’s ribs to make a home around his heart.

Nate hums thoughtfully beside him. “This is a good look for you,” he says, sounding worryingly smug.

Jake tenses. “What look is that, then?“

Nate’s answering expression steals his breath and sends heat licking down his spine. It’s awed and pleased and possessive, and Jake’s mind stutters to a halt when he realizes that’s all for him.

“Happy,” Nate breathes against his lips, and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: Jake/Nate/Jules is my OT3 for _Pacific Rim: Uprising_ , but since this is my first Soulmates fic and first _Pacific Rim_ fic, and it got way long way fast, I didn't add a Jules!future-tech-screwdriver down the back of the Gypsy Avenger symbol. BUT I STRONGLY CONSIDERED IT and who knows, maybe that’ll add itself to their tattoos later—soulmarks are new and scientists haven't figured them out yet, kaiju and rebuilding being their top priorities.
> 
> Do leave kudos and/or comments if you enjoyed—they give me life!


End file.
